


Fervent, Indignant, Forlorn, and Affronted

by SleepyKalena



Series: The Beautiful Game [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (as well as potshots at other people outside of it), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, CW: salt levels so extreme that this fic is the Dead Sea of fics, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, FIFA World Cup 2018, Fluff, Jyn has thoughts on her treatment over the sporting event, Jyn takes verbal potshots at certain people in the World Cup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 06:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15358104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepyKalena/pseuds/SleepyKalena
Summary: England lost to Croatia in the men’s World Cup.It’s not something Jyn would normally get upset over, but there was something about this tournament that really rubbed her the wrong way. And the more she let the feeling simmer, the harder she hit the punching bag that was dangling in front of her.Cassian, Baze, and Bodhi suspect there’s more to her anger and disappointment than a simple loss from her men's national team.





	Fervent, Indignant, Forlorn, and Affronted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NewLeeland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewLeeland/gifts).



> Written for [Lee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NewLeeland/pseuds/NewLeeland), who asked: “Want to write an extra-angsty piece for the Soccer AU?”.
> 
> You bet your ass I did, Lee. But there’s fluff in the end, so there’s that.
> 
> I’m serious about the salt, guys- if you have emotional attachments to certain men’s World Cup players, teams, and/or the referees, or if you have strong thoughts about the men’s World Cup itself, _please close this tab or hit that “back” button_. This is a Hurt/Comfort with fluff at the end, but I’m not going to be held responsible if anyone’s feelings get hurt over the commentary. Angst was requested, after all, so I rolled up the sleeves on this one.
> 
> Also dedicated to the Rebelcaptain: GoaT server <3

They lost.

In fairness, she should’ve seen it coming. The English men’s national football team got complacent after scoring the first goal less than 10 minutes after kickoff and decided to park the bus. She even screamed at the large telly in the pub for underestimating the opponent (in the semi-finals, no less!), and Cassian had to put a hand on her shoulder to get her to wind down a bit.

She never said a bad thing against any of the other teams, only individual players, as well as the occasional referee (seriously, that Mark Geiger bloke can sod off and fall face-first after tripping on sidewalk). Just because it was the men’s World Cup didn’t mean that it was necessary to trash an entire country on the basis of 11 men on the pitch.

The fans cheering for other countries, however, made no such promise to themselves.

Cassian, she knew, could handle the ribbing he got over being one of the only ones in the local pub cheering for Mexico- “Lucky you’ve got Korea around to save your arses, mate!” was one of the more common ones, as was “You? Cheering against Brazil? You’re having a laugh, ain’t ya?”

If only she were so lucky to receive the same level of banter from people cheering for other teams. The mockery and derision happened so frequently the words started to blend together, but some of them were really persistent in sticking out:

> _“Cheering for England? So typical of you,_ of course you would _.”_
> 
> _“Those imperialists? Not surprising.”_
> 
> _“SUCK IT, BITCH, ABOUT TIME ANOTHER COUNTRY GOT A SHOT AT THE TITLE!”_

And that wasn’t even including the shit she got for being, well...a _her_ :

> _“Jumping on the bandwagon cuz it’s the World Cup, love?”_
> 
> _“It’s because of Kane, innit? I suppose I can see that, but there's more to football than their looks!”_
> 
> _“You’re such a good girlfriend for letting your man drag you here to watch the game! Wish I got myself a bird like that.”_

She was even graced with a droll explanation not long ago from a man sitting next to her at the bar about what VAR was, what it stood for, and why it was “such a huge step forward in technology”. Not that she even needed the explanation; she’d been following the use of the Video Assistant Referee since the A-League implemented the system in Australia, and again in the US with Major League Soccer. VAR was far from being an incredibly shiny, new piece of technology in the wake of the men’s World Cup, but she held her tongue, kept quiet, and nodded along. She pulled out her phone idly as the man rambled on, texting Cassian a quick, _“Almost at the pub?”_ only to be disappointed by his response: _“Train’s running late, probably going to miss the first half at this rate”_.

She remembered setting her phone down and sighing, which the man (luckily) took to mean she was bored with him, and he said, “I’m sorry, that’s a lot of information to throw on someone who’s new to football. Most folks only care once every four years.”

“Yeah,” she mumbled, still cross with him for insinuating that she was a bandwagoner. It didn’t help that she’d only finally been able to buy herself an England kit thanks to her new job, the first major splurge she had for herself as a reward, so the unfaded colors and the lack of stains really made her look like she was new to the sport.

“So,” the guy started again, leaning back a bit to observe the name on the back of her kit, “You a fan of Alli? It’s that boyish charm, innit?”

Jyn grit her teeth and felt her blood bubbling, but she stayed quiet and kept her eyes fixed on the screen. She had other reasons to be a fan of him over the other boys on the team; guys like him didn't deserve to know them.

The action picked up in that match, but her anger was still eating at her, brewing, simmering, and she flinched slightly when the guy’s voice came roaring back into her ear, “Bloody ref! What the fuck is the point of VAR if ya ain’t even gonna reverse the decision?! Fucking wanker, can’t you see it’s-”

“Not a reversible decision,” she finished for him, knowing full well he was going to say _“it’s a penalty!”_

The man paused and blinked at her.

She sighed and took a sip of her pint. “The decision can only be reversed if it’s a clear and obvious foul in the box. The ref saw it- sure, it’s a foul, but it’s not a clear and obvious one, so he’s standing by his decision to not blow the whistle for a penalty.”

Jyn turned her head to look at the man, who looked as though his jaw had fallen off and bounced under the dirty bar floor.

“What?” she asked cheekily, “did you not know that?”

The man continued to gawk as she took another sip, and she caught him opening and closing his mouth like a confused guppy out of the corner of her eye. But she had enough of that match- her mood soured thanks to the treatment she got yet again by football nerds who wanted to talk over her and underestimate her interest in the sport, and she left before Cassian could even get out of the nearby train station. “ _Fuck the match, I want to go to the cafe and catch the updates on my phone_ ,” she texted.

Cassian understood right away. “ _More wankers at the bar?_ ”

“... _yes._ ”

She could practically hear the chuckling in his head as he sent his response: “ _Alright, I’ll buy you that strawberry cake you like so much._ ”

Bless the man, he really _did_ know how to cheer up a gal.

But England’s loss to Croatia was one of the tougher pills she had to swallow. It was one of the most pathetic ways to lose, getting sloppy in all the worst ways. Her team was suffering from its own mistakes, but it’s her country and her team, and all she wanted to do was cheer for them in peace.

The men’s team had gone decades not winning a cup, and they were close, they were so, _so_ close, to getting another one. Her heart especially broke when she saw the look of fatigue and resignation on Alli’s face. Surely, the young man would have another shot at the cup four years from now, but the effort he put in this year felt like it would’ve helped carry the team through. Instead, they were forced to try and make do with shooting to be third place, if they even had the ability to win that match (it’s Belgium, after all).

She hoped that sleeping the shock and anger off would help, but she woke up the next morning not even feeling remotely hungry, and still just as bitter as the day before.

“Yeah, I hear ya on the slurs,” Bodhi admitted, setting a mug of coffee down in front of her before taking a seat across from her at the dining table and taking a sip out of his own mug. He looked a bit disconcerted with the flavor of it, and he smacked his lips in dissatisfaction. “Shame Cassian isn’t here to cheer you up.”

Jyn shrugged. “Don’t think he’d be able to help, honestly. No one batted an eye at him cheering for Mexico. I got too much shit for cheering for England.”

“You’re telling me,” he chuckled. “Some boys kept looking at me like I was cheering for the wrong country, and I had people outside England telling me we deserved to lose because white people needed to stop winning. I didn’t know what to tell them, other than that I was English myself.”

“How was their reaction?”

After stirring in a packet of sugar, he took a contemplative sip and habitually ruffled his hair. “They mumbled something about Croatia being the underdog between the two, so they’d be cheering for them.”

She scoffed. “What, the team that has Milan, Barca, Juventus players?”

“Don’t forget Madrid and Liverpool!” he teased.

Jyn let her head drop down and make a thudding noise on the table. “Can this World Cup be over already? I hate it when seasonal fans come in picking fights with me like they know the sport. I want to go back to dissing people for actual football things and bitching about actual football problems.”

“Nah, the whole bit about Spain and Portugal fans making gorilla noises and angry slurs at black people on the pitch will have to wait,” he said with lighthearted snark as he stirred another packet of sugar into his mug. “That, and the FIFA corruption. Oh! And the bribery- that’ll have to wait, too.”

All she could do was sigh as Bodhi quietly continued to drink his coffee.

Off to Bodhi’s right, Jyn’s phone buzzed. After noticing that Jyn hadn’t bothered to move from her face-planting position on the table, he poked her arm.

“Gonna answer that? Judging by the hour, it might be Leia.”

“What, and talk about that stupid loss from yesterday? No thanks. She’s probably out to have a laugh at my expense because now we’re _both_ cheering for losers.”

Bodhi grinned. “At least _our_ losers actually made it into the thing.”

Jyn’s head snapped up and she let her chin rest on the tabletop, then blew a loose strand of hair that was falling in front of her face. “Let’s face it Bodhi, we played like shit. Belgium’s going to wipe the floor with us the way they did the Yanks four years back.”

He couldn’t help but crack up at the memory. “Oh man, I nearly forgot about that- I can still hear Leia’s screeching in my head. She’s never going to forgive that Wondolowski guy, is she?”

She snorted and let out a giggle that bordered on the edge of cackling.

Jyn knew that Bodhi was trying his best to cheer her up, in his own way. She stuck her hand out, hoping for comfort, and Bodhi- sweet, best friend Bodhi- knew exactly what she wanted, so he took her hand in his and soothingly rubbed the back of it. She sighed contentedly.

That moment of peace was short-lived- her phone buzzed again.

She snatched the phone off the table and checked her notifications: two texts from Leia and one from Cassian. Based on the preview on her notifications (“ _No but srsly I’m sorry about England losing. How you_ ”), it looked like Leia had decided to teasingly gloat at Jyn for England’s loss, which she suspected was in the first text. She wasn’t in the mood to match her sass and go toe-to-toe with her just yet though, so she opened Cassian’s text instead: “ _Hope you feel better today._ ”

“ _I’m not,_ ” she replied, “ _but I’ll probably get Baze to open the gym a bit early. I need to punch something_.”

Jyn leaned back on the chair to stretch and fully wake up. “I need to get out of here,” she mumbled. “I’m still too staggered from yesterday, and I’m not sure if I can handle getting tilted without punching someone’s lights out.”

“Baze’s?”

She nodded. “Baze’s.”

“Alright. Well,” Bodhi said, pausing mid-sentence to down the remainder of his coffee and get up from the chair, “I’ll leave you to it. Hope your day gets better, Jyn. Just think of it this way, though- we survived over other teams because at least we didn’t have a bloke who thought he could get away with barrel-rolling his way to victory.”

Jyn couldn’t help but grin at that jab.

And jab she did. _Left, right, left-left, right._ A hook punch. More jabs, some harder than the next.

Baze stood his ground on the other side of the punching bag, letting her continue to take shots at it, but he felt a bit of a bite to her movements, a sharpness and anger to her punches, and while he wanted to ignore it and let Jyn deal with her anger on her own terms, the flurry of punches and a final kick sent him scooting backwards a couple of inches along with the heavy bag, and he had to yell, “TIME OUT!” to get her to stop.

Jyn, drenched in sweat with strands of hair plastered to her forehead and cheeks, was panting hard and only somehow just now realized how hard she pushed herself.

“It’s not about England losing, is it, little sister?” Baze asked, dusting his shirt.

She merely grunted and readied herself to throw more punches.

Jyn expected Baze to get back behind the bag to reinforce it for her, but he stood between her and the heavy black pillar swinging gently back to equilibrium.

Baze’s tone of voice was firm, but there was a gentleness around the edges of it. “I know you’re upset. I get it. But there’s something more and I think you need to let it out.”

She wanted to roll her eyes at his interference, but a part of her knew he was right- she just...didn’t feel like talking about it at this very moment.

“You’re thinking of not telling me.” It was less of an accusation and more of a statement of fact. He and Chirrut were honestly too good at reading her to such an extent, but she wasn’t sure if she loved it or hated it.

“I just want to punch things out and get it over with,” she said, tightening her fists to make the gloves twitch. The anger and heat were bubbling in her core, and she took notice of the sweat dripping down the surface of her stomach, underneath the baggy muscle tee.

“All you’re doing is getting angrier and angrier, and that’s not-”

They both stopped to look at the door, which opened to reveal Cassian, dressed in jeans and a long-sleeve thermal, rolled up to just under the elbow. Clearly, he wasn’t looking to work out today, but there was a look of concern in his face and his hair was a bit disheveled.

Baze took this as a cue to leave. “I think my job is done here,” he said, smiling, and he tossed a key ring at Cassian. “I’m getting breakfast. Lock the door once I’m out?”

“Sure thing,” Cassian replied, and he fiddled w/ the door jam a bit to get the door locked at Baze’s request.

Jyn, meanwhile, turned her attention back to the punching bag and took more shots at it. _Left-left, right, left-right, right-right, left_ -

“Jyn?” Cassian asked, cautiously entering the mat to approach her.

She ignored him and kept punching. She still didn’t feel better, and she didn’t want to snap at him.

“Jyn,” he said more firmly this time.

No, she was in _no mood_ to talk, she didn’t want to open her mouth and let the rant spill out. She was just going to keep punching. Punch and scream is all she can do to get the anger out, and-

“JYN.”

Cassian had grabbed her by the forearm, gripping as hard as he could to stop her from pulling back. She stared, startled, at the point of contact, but after a few seconds her eyes shifted to meet his, and Cassian was met with anger.

The words were nearly a snarl from her. “Let. Go.”

“Jyn,” he said again, his eyes pleading with her.

She was ready to shove him. _It’s not fair. It’s. Not. Fair._ She needed to punch out the anger, and punch and punch and punch until she became too exhausted to care about the past month and a half. But Cassian squeezed her arm soothingly, and the anger exploded in her chest. She yanked her arm back, raising a fist, ready to shove him aside to keep punching, but-

It turns out she didn’t need to keep punching; the anger had dissipated, and she was left with disappointment.

“It only happens every four years,” she mumbled, her head hung low.

“Yes, that’s how World Cups work,” Cassian agreed, unsure of her point.

“I know it’s sort of stupid, getting excited for a bunch of sweaty men kicking a ball around the pitch, but it’s one of the few things I like.”

“I don’t blame you,” he soothed, and he reached out to clutch her muscle tee to pull her hips in closer to his.

“I just wanted to cheer with the people around me and have a good time watching everyone play.”

Cassian nodded. “I did, too.”

“But then these other people just...they come in and bring in unrelated things into the mix, saying things that have no basis in the sport.”

He placed his other hand on the other side of her hips once he pulled her in close enough.

“Even if they didn’t know about football, I just wanted to cheer with them. I didn’t want to get judged,” she mumbled, trying to find some coherency in her sadness. “And it sucks when I’m one of the few girls in the crowd, and-”

He pressed his head against hers. “Should I have stood up for you more?”

She shook her head, and his hair mingled with her sweat. “You shouldn’t have to be put in a situation where that’s even an option. It’s just stupid.” Slowly, she undid the straps on her gloves and tossed them carelessly onto the floor. “Either they don’t truly know the sport and talk as though they do, or they throw comments about a country without knowing the football politics behind it, or it’s people assuming that I’m some sort of bandwagoner.”

Jyn pushed him back just enough to slump down to the mat, lying down to watch the punching bag swing in and out of her peripheral vision and hearing the squeak of the chains. She took a deep sigh, feeling only somewhat relieved to get that off her chest, but there was an ache in her heart that she couldn’t quite pin, and now that all her rage had gone, she found herself struggling to come to terms with what this leftover grief was, much less how to deal with it.

“I mean…” she started. “...You know me. I don’t want to say my interests are ‘quirky,’ because they’re not. I just wish my presence and interest in things wasn’t always so scrutinized. I’m not new to this sport, I’ve watched this sport for years, and yet they’re taking notice of me now? I’ve never seen them around in the past, why are they treating me like this?”

Cassian decided to join her on the mat, nudging his arm closer to hers and spreading his fingers just enough for their pinkies to touch. “I’m sorry people threw you into their shenanigans and put you in the cross-hairs. I wish there was something I could do, but it doesn’t look like I can do much about it either.”

Her chest heaved and her breath shook slightly upon exhale. “I just wanted to enjoy the competitions. And now I have to wait another four years and hope that the next World Cup won’t suck as much as this one did.”

“Actually,” he started, sitting back up, “You won’t have to wait that long.”

“If this is leading to some joke about how you’ll try and make those 4 years feel like less than that, you’re an idiot,” she deadpanned.

Cassian had to laugh at that. “I _did_ consider making that joke, but that’s not what I’m referring to.” He pulled out his phone, tapped a few buttons, and scrolled a bit before placing it gently on Jyn’s stomach.

 _It’s probably a meme or something,_ Jyn assumed, and she wasn’t really in the mood for World Cup jokes, but she sat up and decided to humor him anyway and grabbed the phone. Instead of seeing an image, however, she saw an email. She skimmed through it but didn’t quite understand what was so great about it.

“What is this, a flight itinerary?” she asked.

“A vacation, you could say.” Cassian looked as though he was trying really hard not to feel proud of himself for having booked plane tickets. “Can you guess where?”

“I don’t need to guess, clearly you bought flight tickets to France.”

“Check the dates.”

“The 30th of June til the 10th of July.” She shrugged and looked back up at him. “So what?”

But then her eyes widened and she looked back down at his phone. _Wait_.

Cassian had booked a round-trip flight for two to France for the first week of July of next year, namely-

“Are we-?” she asked, almost too scared to say the words in case this was a dream, a figment of her imagination, something too good to be true.

His suppressed smile became the widest of grins. “We’re going to the Women’s World Cup.”

She wanted to scream. She wanted to jump. She wanted to, she wanted to-

 

Cassian found himself tackled back onto the mat, and Jyn’s body heat seared through his clothing. He already knew Jyn couldn’t find the right words to say in the heat of excitement, but he didn’t really need them- her thanks and gratitude were loud and clear.

He scratched softly at the nape of her neck and decided to keep talking. “I hated seeing you so upset about being talked down to every time you went to watch a match and I figured, well...the women’s matches are usually quieter. Granted, the hype isn’t nearly as huge, but at least most of the viewers are really into the sport, and I think it’s safe to say they won’t question you when you cheer for a team.”

“Not bad for a vacation,” was all she could say as she chuckled into the dip of his collarbone.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he hummed, enjoying the weight of her body on his. She was a bit of a mess, still drying off the sweat and all, but it was worth it.

They lay like that for a while, with Jyn’s arms still wrapped tightly around his neck. The punching bag had long since stopped swinging, and for a moment he took in the comfort of knowing that things had finally come to rest.

“How you feeling?” he finally asked, noticing that her breathing had finally calmed and her grip loosened.

There was a moment of silence, and for a second it seemed as though Jyn had actually fallen asleep, but then-

“Like strawberries.”

“You feel...like _strawberries_ ,” he repeated slowly, the confusion clear in his cadence.

She nodded, using the action to simultaneously nuzzle further into his neck.

“Strawberries,” he said again.

“On top of pancakes.”

 _So that’s what she meant_.

He chuckled and patted her back as a cue to get up. “Alright, let’s get you some strawberry pancakes.”

She grinned, beaming as they headed to a local breakfast joint; their pinkies were locked, their arms swung gently, and there was a bit of a skip in her step.

Cassian always thought her grins were cute, but his heart fluttered at the thought of how much brighter, better, more beautiful it would be to see that same charismatic grin next summer, against the backdrop of Lyon.


End file.
